Main Street VW’s Baker resigns position

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The 18-member Main Street Van Wert board has the unenviable job of replacing Seth Baker, who is leaving the project manager’s position to earn an MBA at Wright State University’s Lake Campus.

Baker, who has been in the Main Street position for two years, said leaving is “very bittersweet” for him.

“I obviously, clearly love what I do here,” he added.

Baker said he had informed the board when he first took the position that further education was something he planned to pursue. “From Day 1, I was up front that eventually I was going to go back for further education,” he explained.

That came to fruition with an offer of a graduate assistant’s position in the MBA program at the Lake Campus. Baker will leave his current position, effective August 31.

The Main Street Van Wert head said he took the position with the express goal of giving back to his hometown.

“When I first moved back to the community, it was to come back to give back to a community that had given a lot to me when I was growing up,” Baker said.

He said his educational background, which includes training in community planning and horticulture, was good preparation for the Main Street job, but added he has received plenty of benefits from the past two years in the position.

“Gosh, just incredible growth for me,” Baker said, adding that working with downtown businesses has taught him a lot about how small business people think and what their needs are – mostly through brief conversations with business owners on a daily basis.

“It’s those little three-minute conversations that you have with people that you learn the most,” Baker said. He noted that he also came to realize that building a viable community is not a one-man job.

“Community doesn’t happen with just one person, it takes many groups of many groups to get things to work,” Baker said.

So, while he is pleased with the accomplishments of his office over the past two years, the Main Street head is quick to point out that the credit doesn’t accrue to him alone, but to many people who have volunteered their time to help with downtown development.

There have been a number of accomplishments, though, for Main Street Van Wert in the past two years, and that is pleasing to Baker, who said interest in the downtown area “has definitely spiked” since he’s been in his current position, with some “major players” again looking at a downtown presence.’

Development is one of the things Baker enjoys most about his job.

“I love watching the new businesses open and the spaces get filled,” he said, while noting that he also enjoyed seeing the Streetscapes project unfold, from an esthetic standpoint.

Baker also said his marketing skills must have improved over the past two years, since he has done a pretty good sell job on himself.

“Part of my job is to convince people this community is a good place to be,” Baker said. “In the process of convincing others, I convinced myself.”

Baker said going to school in Celina will allow him to remain in the community and he plans to do some local volunteering while in school — while also looking at the possibility of returning to some kind of public administration position after he earns his MBA.

His biggest concern now is getting the right person to take over before he leaves. “There are so many balls up in the air here, it’s important to find appropriate people to keep those balls up there,” Baker said.

That’s also the concern of Main Street board members, three of whom met with the Van Wert County Board of Commissioners on Thursday to discuss how to find the best replacement for Baker.

That’s definitely a challenge, since both the city and county have cut their contributions to their Main Street program over the past several years, mostly because of the economy and budget concerns.

City Council President Gary Corcoran joined Mayor Louis Ehmer and Development Director Nancy Bowen — all Main Street Van Wert board members — to discuss the problem with the commissioners.

“Seth has been a tremendous asset to the community,” Corcoran said, calling Baker’s contributions to the downtown development program “immeasurable.”

“Now that he’s leaving us, we’re faced with the contingency of what to do with regard to a replacement,” Corcoran said, adding that Main Street executive committee members believe that it’s not appropriate right now to seek a full-time manager until funding has been found to do so.

Corcoran said Main Street board members are currently talking with stakeholders of the program and also looking at hiring a professional fundraiser who could possibly help develop public- and private-sector funding for the program.

“We haven’t been too successful at this ourselves,” Corcoran said of local efforts to fund the program.

He also noted that plans now are to find a part-time person for the position, although doing so could have an impact on Heritage Ohio requirements for receiving tier grant funding.

Corcoran said he feels it’s better to “sacrifice” the Heritage Ohio membership in the short term in order to make the program stronger in the future.

The three Main Street board members did acknowledge, however, that the organization needs to maintain a presence in the downtown community in order to continue development efforts there, as well as write some grants that would provide additional funding for the program.

Commissioner Clair Dudgeon also commended Baker for his service to the organization, but did note, though, that funding could be a problem — at least in the short term.

Bowen said that, if funding concerns can be resolved and a full-time manager again hired, she would like to see the part-time position being looked at now become an office manager position to provide further support to the program.

She also had concerns that the current downtown situation be maintained. “People who come are very impressed with our downtown now,” Bowen said, noting that wasn’t the case a few years ago when low occupancy and deteriorating buildings was turning the downtown area into an eyesore.

Commissioner Thad Lichtensteiger acknowledged, though, that Main Street funding is a real “Catch-22” problem for the community.

“You want investment, but there’s no money for investment, yet you know you’re not going to get people in until you get things cleaned up,” he noted. “It’s a real pickle to be in.”

Corcoran, who pointed to communities such as New Bremen and Minster — and the investment there by Crown Controls and Minster Machine — as the kind of community financial support that’s needed here.

“We need to invest in ourselves,” Corcoran noted.

Commissioner Gary Adams said the commissioners were very interested in downtown development, especially since many of the county’s offices are on Main Street. “We’ve got a window seat (on downtown),” Adams said.